Type on a path and curled ribbons in Photoshop
Adobe® Photoshop® users have long envied their Adobe Illlustrator® colleagues' ability to make type follow a curved path in their illustrations. Now Photoshop CS removes that green-eyed monster from the imaging artist's back. This latest version of Photoshop now allows you to place text so that it wraps around the contours of a circle or replicate the shape of a ribbon.
As in Illustrator, the key to this amazing transformation is the Pen tool in Photoshop. In this how-to from Photoshop kingpin Scott Kelby, you'll learn how to not only make text in the round, you'll also learn how to align type to exactly follow a ribbon's curves.
Photoshop CS did add one of the most long-time requested features—type on a path; and we attach type to a circular path while building this logo, but I think the star of this technique is later on in the process, when you create a curved ribbon banner (like you’d normally do with the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator) from right within Photoshop. It’s so easy you may never go back to the old Illustrator way again.
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Open a new document in RGB mode. Create a new layer by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Press “d” to set your Foreground color to black. Get the Custom Shape tool from the Toolbox. In the Options Bar click on the third icon from the left (to create pixel-based shapes), and then click on the Shape thumbnail to bring up the Shape Picker. From the Picker’s pop-down menu, choose Symbols and click Append to load that set. Choose the Yin Yang symbol, hold the Shift key, and drag out the shape (Figure 1).
Figure 1
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Hold the Command key (PC: Control key) and click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to create a new layer under your Yin Yang layer. Get the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Toolbox, hold the Shift key, and drag out a circular selection that’s larger than your Yin Yang symbol. Press “x” to set your Foreground color to white, then press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill your selection with white. Press “d” to set your Foreground back to black. Go under the Edit menu and choose Stroke. When the Stroke dialog appears, choose 1 pixel for Width, Center for Location, and click OK. Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect (Figure 2).
Figure 2
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Command-click (PC: Control-click) the New Layer icon again to create another new blank layer. Click on the Foreground Color Swatch and choose red, then use the Elliptical Marquee tool to create a significantly larger circular selection. Fill this selection with red by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) (Figure 3).
Figure 3
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Press “d” to set your Foreground color back to black. With your selection still in place around the red circle, choose Stroke from the Edit menu. Choose 4 pixels for Width, Center for Location, and click OK to put a black stroke around your red circle (as shown) (Figure 4).
Figure 4
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While your selection is still in place, go under the Select menu and choose Transform Selection. Then, go up in the Options Bar and increase both the W (width) and H (height) to 110%, and press Return (PC: Enter) to expand the selection outward by 10% (as shown) (Figure 5).
Figure 5
